Fortuna
by chi-of-ink
Summary: "Misfortune", whispered the citizens of Valeria. Long, long ago - back when Valeria still continued living human beings. "Misfortune." It followed him everywhere. One-shot - Fai-centric, implied kurofai


**Fortuna**

**i. - missing**

There was a narrow street in Outo about two blocks away from Cat's Eye where the sun often glowed through the shadows of thin, starry-shaped sakura blossoms, creating stained-glass patterns on the earth. Later finding out the truth about that world - a truth only they remained so oblivious to: 'virtual reality,' as Fairy Park's advanced team dubbed it - would do nothing to darken that lovely, lonely memory from Fai's mind.

More so than the enchanting trick of light, it was the people tangled up in them that made something high in his chest flutter and sink. The tired life in Sakura's blinking eyes as her namesake flower waved above her, the gold-brown slice of light that slid across Kurogane's jaw and over the set, serious line of his mouth, the sound of Syaoran's heavy shoes thumping rhythmically as he walked, then faltering clumsily as he tried to correct his step to fall beside Sakura's.

Sometimes a frighteningly _okay_ feeling would hit him, and on Outo's picture-perfect street, that feeling came with full force. It was as if he breathed their honest air a little too deeply and found himself being lifted up by it.

But then, just as quickly, reality would sink back in with it's own familiar poison and his feet would be square on the ground and the three of them were far, far away. He was detached. This was the way it had to be.

_Because this have nothing to do with me._

**ii. - once upon a time**

Before Fai became "Fai", before he even knew he would live to make such a choice, when he lay sprawled and half-hidden in wild blonde hair, his throat absolutely raw from screaming, his fingernails scratched almost down to bone from the gritty, towering prison wall...

He didn't know where the sun was in the sky, or if it was even still there at all. He only knew that his brother was there, somewhere high above him, and he hated himself constantly for the aura of life he continued to give. If he did not live, then maybe his brother could be free.

A voice chanted over him like a mantra's - maybe Fai's, maybe his own.

"_I want to die. I want to die. I want to die. I want to die."_

The agony of starvation clawed at him from the inside out. The agony of his tired body was continuous, like a shower of needles, an weakness that wouldn't end. And his _mind_, the way that there were no tears left, the way that there was no hope left, the way that he could no longer even be sure who was whispering those things...

_"I want to die. I want to die. I want to die. I want to die."_

_"But before I die, I want to loved by someone..."_

**iii. - his first mistake**

Telling himself again and again that he would not _really_ be on the journey did not help. He would be hiding, _Yuui _would be hiding, and the people he was told he would meet, well, it didn't matter what kind of people they were. It was temporary, a temporary game to push him further to the conclusion of his wish. He would be willingly manipulated. Who was he to argue? A horrible person like him, a person whose life had erased the life of his precious, precious brother.

He would not get close. He would not break down. He would not reach out. He would not. He would not. He would

"_Should I call you Kuro-rin? Kuro-tan? Kuro-pii?"_

**iv. - sleep**

When the lights dimmed and the moon crawled up into the sky, a thin crescent fingernail shape that didn't betray much light, he discovered that sleep presented a new uncomfortable problem.

Once, very long ago, he lay half on his side, pale blonde hair sweeping over his expression and limbs splayed lifelessly. For a long, long time, he could be motionless like that. Then, in the next stage of his life - the stage that contained Ashura-Ou - he slept in a castle, isolated at night by request.

But now there were more eyes on him than just his brother's or a passing maternal guard or concerned king - there was the constant night presence of Sakura's restless turning, Syaoran's stillness, but most of all, Kurogane's trained way of resting, like a frozen picture, alert and ready - _like a guard dog,_ he thought, and that almost made him laugh, but it wasn't _funny_ when he knew he could rise or merely shift and in the night and even though Kurogane wouldn't move, he would _know..._

Fai's blank smile stayed balanced tediously on his lips until he flipped himself around and lay face-down against his pillow. The thought of someone studying his face in sleep...off guard, unprepared, _unsmiling..._was actually quite frightening.

**v. - sakura**

The helpless way Sakura clasped her fingertips to to her chest, her eyes far away, wise but so, so lost. The confusion...the torturous, quiet longing that visibly fell upon her when she watched Syaoran busily reading was surely the strongest cry of them all, despite the fact that it was silent. She knew there was something missing, something right there in front of her, but she couldn't reach out

(-"_I want to be loved by someone_"-)

and take it. She couldn't curl her fingers around it and reclaim it. She couldn't _own_ it. It wasn't _her's._

Fai taught her the smiling trick, the one a very special person once taught to him. The tenseness in her shoulders melted a little as she thought about it, the corners of her lips twitching hopefully. "There is something you can do, Sakura-chan." Fai had told her kindly.

_'...but that's all that you can do, and it's never quite going to be enough,' _was what he didn't say. Honest was never his strong point. It was simply too painful.

Both Fai and Sakura were extremely powerful. They were both royalty. They were both favorites in the eyes of fate. But Fai was cursed from birth, a misfortunate, unlucky soul, a creature hated by it's own kind. Sakura was young, adored and loved, innocent and lucky. Sakura could throw dice on a table again and again and roll a double six each time without fail.

Sakura was a person whose heart had not yet been broken. The only one of them who hadn't hurt someone else before. Fai wanted to wrap her up in his arms and protect her. Sakura was everything he wanted to be. He hoped he'd never have to see the day when her heart _did_ break...

But of course, he was there. He was there for every second of it.

_("Misfortune", whispered the citizens of Valeria. Long, long ago - back when Valeria still continued living human beings. "Misfortune! Why have we been cursed? Why twins, misfortunate twins! He sees the king's bloodstained face, the suicide that splattered blood across his eyes, when he was a tiny child, shaking, bleeding, and the corpses whispered EVERYTING YOU TOUCH DIES.)_

"_It is true in this world. But there are other worlds_." Fei Wong Reed had told him. But Fai didn't think that was true. Everything he touched_ did _die. Everyone involved with him became hurt. Everyone he dared to care for turned black.

And sure enough, there she was, his precious Sakura, curled up in his arms and bleeding, apologizing, trying to hide her tears with her face half-buried in a pillow and her fingers as cold as ice against his palm.

**vi. - kurogane**

"I've been waiting, too." Fai said, the impulsive illusion in his cheerful nature perhaps taking more control than he realized. The words just spilled out of him, as if the calming air had broken down some weakened barrier. He wasn't looking at Kurogane, but his head was tipped in his direction, and his eyes were fixed quietly on Clover singer - the one that was spinning out a lovely melody under the words "_take me away to happiness."_

"I've been waiting for someone to stay by my side." Fai continued, his voice neither shy nor bold enough to carry over the flowing lyrics. The smile stayed painted there on his face, unchanging. But it never did reach his eyes, and perhaps that why he could never completely shield himself from Kurogane, after all.

It was the first time Fai ever said something in honesty to the other man, and Kurogane did not even reply. The alert, crimson-colored scowl was becoming so common that Fai could not even feel threatened by it's presence. He didn't realize. He didn't realize he was tugging the man closer. He didn't realize he was opening up.

He didn't realize that until he was laying flat on a hard, rumbled bed in Acid Tokyo, his body spiked with pain and white shock from the deep, animal wound on his face, and Kurogane's blurry face was telling him to _shut up, if you want to die, I'll kill you myself. _

_I got close to him, _Fai told Yuuko later, the smile back on his face, although it was colder and noticeably weaker. _I crossed the line I drew for myself, and that's why I can't forgive him. Because if I do, I'll be even closer._

**vii. - closer**

It was a battle again. Fai tried to push him away - at the heart, at the _core_ where it mattered - he saw how it stung Kurogane when he called him by his proper name for the first time. And then the ninja tried to pull him closer, darkly making up for the distance Fai was trying to recreate, but it was _physical, _it was his blood that forced him to live, his hand that would draw the knife like clockwork, never asking when Fai was hungry. And his voice, so much like steel, pushing, demanding, questioning.

Kurogane said: "_It's painful, you know, to die of starvation_."

As if the thought would scare him into leaning down and touching his mouth to the thick, fresh blood welling up on Kurogane's wrist. As he needed the extra goading, when he knew perfectly well Kurogane would force him to drink one way or another. Passive aggression. He stared blankly at the wall, already tasting the blood from across the room.

As if Fai didn't know..._starvation_. ..

_The constant, gnawing agony, at first unbearable, a twisting that tortuously swallowed up his insides. In time, ignoring that pain could file it away, center it deep and low in his torso, just another horror to endure. But the weakness in his muscles kicked in quickly, and to think - to die from the inside out...his bones stood out from beneath his skin, the prominent skeleton taking over his tiny form, he could feel his ribs...the outline of his face became sunken, like a pale skull..._

As if Fai didn't know starvation...

**viii. - syaoran**

In the timeless question of life and meaning and existence, reality versus illusion, good versus bad, he existed in procrastinating and dodging conclusions and sliding away from every threatening conversation. What kind of life will be given to a being who was never even mean to exist? What kind of person could result from an action that was never meant to happen?

Syaoran's amber eyes were warm and strong and sad. And so very, very young. There was an innocence to him that was similar in a way to Sakura's, but there was a heavier weight in him, a _guilt, _that made him different. Fai could not predict what kind of person he would be. Even open meeting him, he was difficult to understand. After all, how sure could anyone be of those warm, strong, beautiful eyes, when without a moment's notice they could suddenly turn cold?

_"Even if it does belong to someone else, even if it is fake, to the one who receives it, that heart is real. That heart belongs to you. With Sakura-chan and your loved ones, you have turned it into a precious thing. And so I can't let it disappear."_

He thought such a thing as he gathered his magic to try and keep 'this' Syaoran in one piece. It was interference, but it was his decision. He thought such a thing, and he thought it was an honesty that was too sudden, too real to hide itself away.

That was moments before Syaoran turned on him, eyes empty and dead, like little chips of ice, one rough, boyish hand reading out and sliding down his face in a sick caress before it the fingers curled behind his head and jerked him forward and_ one thumb pressed against the hollow of his eye and -_

**ix - you**

So maybe Fai was dead. But maybe Yuui was dead too. He felt like a corpse himself holding the weightless, worn form of his only remaining family, turning his head, the lies exposed, and Kurogane there, rising with a growl behind his eyes and _no, please, not this, I didn't want to do this._

Maybe he shouldn't have cried when Ashura-Ou died, just as the king himself said. But he couldn't help it. He couldn't let go as easily as any other person could, and would, and then it was all gone. _Gone. _The lies he hid behind were torn away. Ashura-Ou was torn away. Fai, and all the hope he had never let go of for the tiny child...gone, finally gone.

_(I want to die, I want to die, I want to die.)_

And then Kurogane's hand released his wrist and the flash of a long blade turned and there was blood, so much blood - blood _everywhere. _And Kurogane tangled one fist in his collar and pulled him forward and out and way and _free,_ and there was no regret in his eyes, just determination.

Determination...and something else.

_(But before I die, I want to be loved by someone...)_

**x. - open**

Maybe fate is inevitable, but choices are free. Choices would always be free.

Syaoran apologizing, returning the twisting blue magic he stole. And at Clow kingdom, as the children talked about their 'other selves' with bittersweet voices, the similar faces and different souls that would not go down without a fight.

Although they knew they would return, the last night the three spent with Sakura was full of joy and hope and a terrible pain. Fai embraced her with fierce love the night before they parted for the next world, holding his breath as she wrapped her slender arms crushingly around him. They both cried.

It was amazing, how he lost a family once, twice, and somehow, the third time didn't break. And there they were, Tsubasa and Tsubasa, tangling their fingers together, smiling sadly and knowingly, overflowing with hope. Fai remembered his favorite street in Outo, the one with the sakura-shadows and the golden light. The memories. And watching the two children reach out for each other and say goodbye, he knew he could not toss those memories away and make them unimportant. Ashura-Ou and 'Fai' were gone, but they were still a part of him, personal feathers that would not be scattered. And as silly and weak as that sounded aloud, inside it echoed and reverberated and rang fiercely true.

**xi. - in the end**

Young Tsubasa counted flower petals and smiled, listening to Mokona's reminiscent chattering, hoping the next world would contain another friendly face. Outo was still beautiful the second time around, even though certain streets were lonely with memories, the honesty in his expression was too precious to leave room for regrets.

Kurogane still slept still and ready, and Fai knew that perhaps he would never change that particular habit, if you could call it such a thing. When he got up in the night, he knew Kurogane was aware of it. But instead of sleeping face-down now, he could allow himself to rest on his side or doze off watching the moon peek around the edge of a window frame.

Sometimes, on longer, thought-heavy nights, he'd rise - crossing the room, not allowing himself to think it through entirely - and curl up next to Kurogane, silent and strange, listening to their breathing even out. And sometimes Kurogane would wrap one hand - the mechanical one, the one that was there because of Fai - around his shoulder or the curve of his waist in reply.

_I'm lucky,_ Fai thought suddenly, and his whole body seemed to freeze up and shiver. It wasn't a bad feeling. He had never thought such a thing before. _I'm lucky. My wish was granted. _His throat felt warm - fiercely warm, like his heart was trying to climb up and claw it's way out.

_I'm lucky._


End file.
